


Ear Biscuits #224: Spilling the Beans

by seabonre



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: M/M, Relationship Talk, ear biscuits, implied polyamory, way too many commas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:36:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22288948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabonre/pseuds/seabonre
Summary: Rhett and Link release the first part of their highly-anticipated multi-part podcast conversation surrounding a particular mysterious topic.
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	Ear Biscuits #224: Spilling the Beans

**Author's Note:**

> heavily inspired by heatgeneratingtechniques' amazingly in-character fic written in this same format. pls go give it some love it is one of my favorites of all time <3333

**RHETT:** Welcome to Earrrrr Biscuits, I’m Rhett.

**LINK:** And I have a cold.

**RHETT:** Yes, this week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting we’re going to be, well— Link, why don’t you tell them what we’re doing?

**LINK:** Oh, you gonna put me on the spot?

**RHETT:** Yeah, I am. Please.

**LINK:** Well, this week we’re gonna be, ah, spilling the beans, so to speak, about a hot topic that many of you have, um—

**RHETT:** “Many” is an understatement.

**LINK:** Well, I’m sure there’s some that haven't been anticipating it.

**RHETT:** Avid Ear Biscuits listeners, though?

**LINK:** Well, you never know. Um, we’re gonna discuss something that we’ve been teasing recently, uh, which has, to be honest, been pretty fun.

**RHETT: **(Chuckles) Yeah, it has. 

**LINK: **But we don’t wanna tease you anymore, and um, since this is gonna be a multi-episode thing, we have a lot to talk about and we decided, well— 

**RHETT: ** We collectively, between the two of us, decided we didn’t want to drag out what would, honestly, probably become obvious if we _ did _build up to it. 

**LINK: **Very true. 

**RHETT: **So.

**LINK: **(Giggling) Yeah?

**RHETT: **Don’t be nervous.

**LINK: **You’re nervous, too!

**RHETT: **Mm. You wanna introduce it?

**LINK: **Um, today and for the next episode — or subsequent episodes, if that’s what this turns into — we’re going to be discussing our... relationship?

**RHETT:** I hesitate to call it that, but.

**LINK:** No, it’s a relationship. It always has been. It’s just that now it’s, um.

**RHETT:** Romantic. You can say it. See, now it’s out there.

**LINK: **Don’t pretend you’re not nervous!

**RHETT:** I ain’t pretendin’! I’m sweating over here, dude. All this hair.

**LINK:** Oh, it’s the hair?

**RHETT: **Well, you know.

**LINK: **(Clears throat) Um, anyway, so — yeah. This has been something that, you know, has been brewing for a number of years now. And I think you’d agree with— that it’s always been there.

**RHETT:** Yes, we’ve discussed that. Um, once the both of us kind of addressed what was really going on between us, we came to the conclusion that we’d both basically always had feelings for each other.

**LINK:** Literally our whole lives.

**RHETT:** We just didn’t know that’s what that was. I mean, don’t all best friends feel like this towards each other? Like, it was just our normal. We didn’t know anything else.

**LINK:** And then we got wives and never did anything about it.

**RHETT:** ‘Til now.

**LINK:** ‘Til now. But, I mean, the older we got and the more, I guess... open-minded we became about ourselves and about the world, we kind of leaned into it a little bit more without realizing. Like, literally leaning.

**RHETT:** We got more touchy.

**LINK:** When do you think that started, though? Because I think we have different ideas about, uh, about that.

**RHETT:** The touching?

**LINK:** I mean, I know the touching has always been a thing, but what about the touchiness aspect?

**RHETT:** There’s a difference.

**LINK:** Well, for me any amount of touch is nice. It’s invited. ‘S my loooove language.

**RHETT:** I’ve noticed.

**LINK:** Oh, _ yeah _, you have.

**RHETT:** I’ll stop you right there.

**LINK:** Um, no, really, the touching— I feel like, maybe you die-hard Mythical Beasts might be able to track down some footage proof, but I’ve always touched you in a way that was... excessive, so to speak. At least in your opinion.

**RHETT:** Right, right.

**LINK:** Real consistent footage of us only dates back to our late twenties or whatever, but even before the Kasts and whatnot, I always had to be near you.

**RHETT:** Yeah.

**LINK:** And it made you uncomfortable.

**RHETT:** It did. I would get mad.

**LINK:** At me? Or at yourself?

**RHETT:** Hey, now.

**LINK:** I will say that you didn’t stop me, though.

**RHETT:** Mm.

**LINK:** I mean, in the moment, you did. Especially if we were on camera. But you never sat me down and said, like, “hey. Don’t be doing that anymore.”

**RHETT:** Right.

**LINK:** I think, you know, ever since we were kids I just assumed... I had this idea in my head that if I’m not close to you, then... what’s the point?

**RHETT:** Oh.

**LINK:** Yeah.

**RHETT:** That’s sweet.

**LINK:** Uh, and your love language is giftssss.

**RHETT:** Yes, it is. Jessie got me a great wooden alarm clock the other day. Petrified wood, man.

**LINK:** And you don’t even have a use for it! You have—

**RHETT:** Well, since she got it I want to at least _ try _ and use it.

**LINK:** You have your phone!

**RHETT:** Speaking of Jessie, though.

**LINK:** Oh, yeah?

**RHETT:** And, well, our wives as a unit.

**LINK:** I— a unit?

**RHETT:** I’m sure there’s a myriad of questions and... _ opinions _ surrounding what our wives think, or should think, of all of this.

**LINK:** Yeah, I was gonna bring that up later.

**RHETT:** Oh, did you have something else you wanted to talk about first?

**LINK:** No, no, we can talk about it now.

**RHETT:** You’re still a li’l nervous, huh?

**LINK:** Maybe a little bit.

**RHETT:** Well, I’ll just say this: if you have an issue with Link and I being together, wives— wives included or not, I have nothing to say to you. Nothing to say.

**LINK:** Really? You had a whole awful lot to say earlier.

**RHETT:** That... sounds mildly dirty.

**LINK:** Well, you know, you were ranting about it pretty ferociously.

**RHETT:** Yeah, well, I let all my anger out then. I don’t wanna deal with it now.

**LINK:** That’s fair.

**RHETT:** And ah, as I was saying, if you have an issue with this, I don’t care. Here is where we tell you that, obviously, Christy and Jessie know. And they’re okay with it.

**LINK:** They seemed a bit relieved, actually.

**RHETT:** Yes, and listen, we are not getting freakin'— we're not gonna _leave_ our wives, okay? Listen, this— what me and Link have going on has _zero _effect on the existence of our separate marriages. And _obviously_ we talked to them before anything serious transpired.

**LINK:** Right. This would be a pretty crappy way for them to find out.

**RHETT:** Pff— yeah. I actually have to ask, you think I would’ve asked this sooner, but how exactly did you tell your wife?

**LINK:** Oh, yeah.

**RHETT:** I told you how I told Jessie.

**LINK:** Uh-huh. Well, I mean, it wasn’t like it was gonna be some massive reveal, you know? I kinda just, sat ‘er down and said, hey, y’know. I’m in love with him.

**RHETT:** And what’d she say?

**LINK:** She said “damn right you are!”

**RHETT:** (Laughing) Wow!

**LINK:** I know, right?! Like, like here I am, terrified out of my mind to tell her this, not being sure that she won’t kick my— my gay ass out the house finally, and she says that to me! I even waited for the kids to go to bed!

**RHETT:** Wow. Speaking of gay asses.

**LINK: **Oh, that’s gonna be a later episode.

**RHETT: **You think so?

**LINK: **It’s just that it’s— a lot.

**RHETT: **Yeah, um, Link and I— y’know, after talking about this and really, like, comparing experiences and notes about all this and tracing back some years, we discovered that we had very similar experiences with sexuality.

**LINK: **Yeah, which, I guess you could argue was a conversation that came before the discussion about where we stood with one another in that context. 

**RHETT: **Which also— 

**LINK: **Which probably also influenced the idea of us being together.

**RHETT: **Oh, I absolutely think it did.

**LINK: **Yeah, so, that’ll be another discussion for another day, plus how, y’know, growing up where we did, how religion and things of that nature played into all that to— to kind of bring us to this point and how it influenced the decisions we made.

**RHETT: **Mhm. Yeah.

**LINK: **And, y'know, we mentioned before that one of the big reasons why we're doing the vlogs on the Rhett and Link channel was to— to kind of rewrite a part of our lives where we didn't really have time to goof off, because we got married so young. And so our decision to explore this _other_ facet of our friendship was— we used the same logic.

**RHETT: **Right.

**LINK:** So how’d you tell your wife? Tell them what you told me.

**RHETT:** Alright, so, Jessie and I were— I mean it was a lot more spontaneous than yours. You know how we are.

**LINK:** Pfft. Yeah, still surprising each other after all these years with confessions of love for your best friend.

**RHETT:** Keeping it spicy. (Laughs) We were watching Mandalorian, actually. Boys asleep upstairs. And I was feeling a little bit... wistful?

**LINK:** Oh? For what?

**RHETT:** Not for anything in particular, really. I mean, you and I had already talked about telling our wives that weekend, like at the same time, and so it wasn’t as if I was just like—

**LINK:** Just so angsty you couldn’t keep it in?

**RHETT:** Yeah, just thinking about how much I love Jessie and how much I guess I love you that I knew she deserved to know.

**LINK:** You ‘guess?’

**RHETT:** Well, you know.

**LINK:** So it was both planned and unplanned?

**RHETT:** Yeah, I mean I hadn’t planned on telling her while we were watching freakin’ Star Wars, you know.

**LINK:** Right.

**RHETT:** Basically it just kinda came out, um. Pun intended. She’d told a joke and we were both laughing for a bit and then once we chilled out I was like, “you know, Jessie...” And I told her.

**LINK:** And she reacted well.

**RHETT: **She did. I definitely got a much softer response than, ah, you— than what your wife gave you.

**LINK:** (Laughs) Alright, alright.

**RHETT:** So. That’s that.

**LINK: **Yeah, I think they saw it coming, man.

**RHETT:** Sure did.

**LINK: **Now I want to talk about how we decided to take that, um, final leap, so to speak. Into making it official.

**RHETT:** Yeah.

**LINK: **And I’m not just bringing all this up just to, like, flex on our relationship. Is that what the kids say?

**RHETT:** Yeah, I think so.

**LINK: **At least that’s what my kids say.

**RHETT:** I’m pretty sure most kids say that now.

**LINK: **I’m not just trying to flex, really. This— the purpose of this episode is to kind of just, clear the air. Before we get into the nitty gritty.

**RHETT:** Yeah, we want to, hopefully, answer any questions that we assume you all might want to kn— to have answers to. Any, like, suspicions you might have.

**LINK: **Correct.

**RHETT:** And then we’ll never talk about it again. (Laughs)

**LINK: **(Chuckling) Right, right. So— what was I talking about?

**RHETT:** How we made this happen.

**LINK: **Ah, yes.

**RHETT:** And ‘why,’ too, I guess.

**LINK: **Yeah, so, things— things had been building between us for a while and I suppose we both always knew it. And we knew that the other guy knew it and that they knew that we knew it.

**RHETT:** Mmmhm.

**LINK: **It was kind of just something we stopped resisting. You know, Rhett, you started experiencing some parts of you that you’d shoved down a long time ago, and you started therapy, and that really changed something in you. And it affected me. And that’s how this entire thing arose.

**RHETT:** I opened up some.

**LINK: **Exactly. And that caused you to encourage me to open up. And for a long time I resisted that.

**RHETT:** Because you knew what was going to come out.

**LINK: **Right. It was me.

**RHETT:** (Laughs) Yeah, _you_ were gonna come out.

**LINK: ** And that scared the _ crap _ out of me. So I just left you to it on your own. It wasn’t my problem, you know? It wasn’t me that was going to therapy.

**RHETT:** Though you probably should have been.

**LINK: **Okay, well, yeah. But I eventually lightened up.

**RHETT:** You came in, into the office, and you were like, “I’m tired.”

**LINK: **“I’m tired, man.”

**RHETT:** And we figured it out.

**LINK: **And, you gotta mention, we could have easily just, like, said no. Could’a just kept pushing it down.

**RHETT:** But that was straining us and our friendship. And our wives, too, come to think of it.

**LINK: **Yup.

**RHETT:** So we decided, you know, let’s just try it. Try it and see where it goes, and—

**LINK: **Well, tell our wives first.

**RHETT:** Right, of course. Tell our wives first, then try it and if we don’t like it or if it’s causing more problems than it’s solving, we end it.

**LINK: **And, I don’t know about you, but so far? It’s been _really_ good.

**RHETT:** Gosh, c’mon, man.

**LINK: **I’m just sayin’! Bein’ transparent here. For the Beasts.

**RHETT:** Ah, anyway, let’s bring it back around to now. How do you think it’s changed things?

**LINK: **Well, between us things have obviously changed.

**RHETT:** Do you regret it?

**LINK: **Mmm, no. Not yet at least.

**RHETT:** Well at least we ain’t married to each other. No extra hurdles if we decide to break it off.

**LINK: **That is true.

**RHETT:** Well, I might buy you a ring.

**LINK: **What? I don’t need a ring, man.

**RHETT:** I might wanna someday, if it feels right. I dunno. Make it official.

**LINK: **Put a _rang_ on it?

**RHETT:** Yeah, baby.

**LINK: **Would that make us... engaged? I mean, we wouldn’t get married.

**RHETT:** Well, no. I mean if that would mean we were engaged then that makes us boyfriends currently.

**LINK: **You really just wanna label it, huh?

**RHETT:** I mean, I don’t introduce you to other people as "my boyfriend.” You’re still just “my best friend, Link.”

**LINK: **That’s fair.

**RHETT:** Do you want me to, though?

**LINK: **Want you to what?

**RHETT:** Introduce you as my boyfriend?

**LINK: **Wh— I mean I... I wouldn’t be, um. Opposed to it, per se.

**RHETT:** Let’s rebrand. We’ll be “Rhett and his boyfriend Link.” (Laughs)

**LINK: **Why can’t we just be husbands already, though? We already call ourselves an old married couple. Who needs a ring? It’s 2020!

**RHETT:** Hmm. Yeah, alright. I like that. I like that better than boyfriend.

**LINK: **Sounds less grade school-y. We could also say, like, boysband. Boyfriend-husband.

**RHETT:** I think they just call that a fiancé. Also it just sounds like you're saying "boy band."

**LINK: **But we’re not engaged, remember?

**RHETT:** Okay, so, we’re husbands. We do things that husbands do. We just don’t live together.

**LINK: **Right. We just work together.

**RHETT:** Yeah. Work husbands.

**LINK:** Occupational hubbies.

**RHETT:** So, um, right, well. Tune in next week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting where we’ll be, ah, expounding upon this conversation.

**LINK: **Taking it a little further, li’l more personal.

**RHETT: **Indeed, indeed.

**LINK: **You know, Rhett, for the record I think you’re a good— a good work husband. And boysband. You deserve that I say that.

**RHETT:** Aw, well, thanks, Link. You’re a good boysband, too. I am enjoying our... boy-rriage?

**LINK: **(Giggles) Yeah. Me, too.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on tumblr :^)


End file.
